No spoilers

Well hellooo there. Everyone, meet Art the Clown. He’s nucking futs.

It’s a dark and dirty Halloween night. On TV a talk show hostess interviews a horribly mutilated girl. Two other girls are out on the streets, dressed in super-slutty costumes for the night, and now walking home in the dark. They drop into a friendly pizzeria to commiserate over their evening. But they’ve caught the attention of a terrifying clown carrying a highly suspicious black rubbish sack, and now those two girls are in his sights. I don’t think he’s playing, ladies. Oh yes, something very, very bad is going to happen this evening…and trust us, this clown makes Michael Myers look like My Little Pony.

Just a perfectly safe walk home on Halloween. Right?

When ‘Art’ the clown begins the hunt it’s not long before there’s blood and body parts all over the place. As our heroines try to escape, his kills get very twisted and extremely nasty. Art is a memorable horror villain, able to make you squirm and laugh and scream simultaneously. He treats everything as a joke, but the joke’s deadly serious. Once he sets his sights on you, you’d best run for it and pray for morning. This is actually really good, with some real tension and engaging characters who are mostly quite sympathetic. I honestly cared what happened to them, despite some paper-thin writing. The film even has the sense to give the background characters some halfway-decent dialogue, which makes them feel a little more alive before they’re added to the body-count. But don’t get too attached to anyone, as you can always trust Art to do the worst thing. And oh man, it gets pretty fucking bad…

Eep.

Terrifier is a short, nasty trip into horror; a bloody, gleeful return to those graphically violent, gonna-get-you-for-no-reason exploitation films from the 1970s and ’80s. This throwback knows its roots and thank goodness, the special effects have come a long way. So be warned. It gets unapologetically gross, and even upsetting to anyone who has a shred of empathy left – even after too many horror films, but the horror genre excels at pushing boundaries. It should sometimes be just about using amazing special effects work to generate a disgusted ‘what did I just see?’ reaction from the bloody-thirsty horror-fan audiences. It’s so over the top it’s kind of…funny? Or is that just this Eyeball’s view? It’s all about perspective, guys.

So watch Terrifier for a front row seat to full-on Grand Guignol, if that’s your thing, because Terrifier knows exactly who it’s aiming this at. Namely, those with strong stomachs. But if you don’t have a strong stomach, then you’d better run for the exits before Art the Clown locks you in with him for the night, and hide before he gets out his rusty, blood-spattered saw…